RESEARCH PROGRAMMES

Macroeconomic forecasting and analysis project

On 28 February 2006, the Director of the Foundation and the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research & Innovation at the Carlos III University of Madrid, José Manuel Torralba, signed an agreement for scientific research, development and technological innovation, the general objective of which is to regulate the Foundation’s participation as a sponsor of the Flores de Lemus Institute’s project for macroeconomic forecasting and analysis. This agreement was renewed in 2007 and 2008. The director of the project is Professor of Econometrics, Antoni Espasa, who is the Director of the Flores de Lemus Institute and chief researcher at the Macroeconomic Forecasting and Analysis Laboratory of the Carlos III University of Madrid.

The project is embodied in the monthly publication - in Spanish and English - of the Bulletin of Inflation and Macroeconomic Analysis (BIAM).

Professor Espasa defined the BIAM as: “a university project that seeks to perform rigorous periodical analyses, based wholly on sound econometric forecasts and results, of the Spanish economy and of the economic areas with which Spain has special links. Currently the area dealt with in most depth is the euro area, which is the subject of a general macroeconomic analysis and a specific analysis of inflation and monetary policy. The latter also includes the United States, due to the influence that its economy has on the euro/dollar exchange rate, and all the countries in the Euro15 group. Providing the econometric medium developed allows it, the analyses of the Spanish economy are performed by inter-relating three levels of study: macroeconomic, sectorial and autonomous regional, and inserting it into the context of the euro area”.